I don’t know if you’re following the saga of the Folk Art Museum building in New York City. I first learned of the building and its story in an editorial on Architectural Record.

I’m not sure why I find this story so intriguing.  Well, that’s not completely accurate.  It may not be this exact story that catches my attention, but I know why this type of story intrigues me.

And while I’m clarifying for the sake of accuracy, my intrigue could be more accurately classified as anger.

I’m getting ahead of myself.  Let me give you some background.

The extremely condensed version of this story goes like this.  The Folk Art Museum building designed by Tod Williams Billie Tsien opened in 2001.  The building was sold to the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) their next door neighbor in 2011. Earlier this year MoMA announced they had plans to demolish the building to make room for an expansion.

Now in the interest of full disclosure, I just read another article on Architectural Record – MoMA has commissioned Diller Scofidio + Renfro for their expansion plan.  DS+R is looking into the feasibility of not razing the Folk Art Museum building. I guess time will tell.

Back to my anger.

Our society’s disregard for the past is what saddens me most.  Whether the building is a decade old or a century old or five centuries old, it seems like such a waste.

If you read my last blog, you have a sense of what I’m talking about. The Rijksmuseum probably could have chosen to spend a ton less money and could have finished the project in a shorter timeframe had they chosen to build new.

Rather than trashing the old to make way for new, other solutions have to be examined. Contrary to a popular phrase, newer is not always better.

REDUCE, REUSE, RECYCLE.

photo via flickr.com/zokuga

We’ve all heard of “eco-friendly” or “green products,” but what do these statements really mean? The truth is, they don’t always mean much. As designers and as consumers, we need to be savvy about searching for and selecting truly environmentally friendly products. So, what do you need to look for? There are three levels of environmental claims – ranging from the least reliable to the most reliable:

1^st Party Environmental Claims: These are made within the organization or manufacturer who produces the product but are not compared to a standard. They may be as vague as “environmentally friendly” or “low VOC (Volatile Organic Compounds)”

2^nd Party Environmental Claims: These claims are made outside of the organization or manufacturer, but are not free from conflict of interest. They may include CRI or Cradle to Cradle

3^rd Party Environmental Claims: Third party claims are most reliable, and are independent of the organization or manufacturer. They include FSC, Green Seal and NSF.

As designers and consumers, we need to beware of vague, too-good-to-be-true claims. In order to make a more informed decision about an organization’s or manufacturer’s “environmental claim,” boldly ask for certifications and data on their products.

This information was taken from a CEU called “Environmental Claims” provided by Bentley Prince Street. For information on guides for various types of environmentally friendly products, visit: Bureau of Consumer Protection

May 1, 2013 marked the opening of the George W. Bush Presidential Center in Dallas, Texas. Home to the George W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum and the Bush Institute and sited on the campus of Southern Methodist University, the complex has been awarded LEED Platinum Certification under New Construction (v2009) by the USGBC (United States Green Building Council) and is the first presidential library to integrate LEED principles from its inception. Robert A.M. Stern Architects together with Landscape Architects Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates designed the graceful brick and limestone structure set in a native Texas prairie that creates this gem on the SMU campus.

LEED certification was achieved through the use of designs, materials and systems that are sustainable, energy efficient and reduce the facilities impact on the environment and human health. The Center’s LEED features include:

• Restored habitat via planting more than 70 % of the site
• Reduced ‘heat island’ effect through use of green and highly reflective roofs, solar shading, rooftop photovoltaic arrays, rooftop solar hot water panels
• Diverting construction waste away from landfills, use of recycled materials
• Low-VOC-emitting materials to maintain high indoor air quality
• Regionally sourced materials
• Rainwater harvesting to reduce site irrigation by 50%
• Native plants
• High efficiency HVAC systems
• Parking for low-emission, fuel efficient and carpool vehicles
• Proximity to  Dallas Area Rapid Transit light rail and bus line

For more details please refer to the George W. Bush Presidential Center LEED Certification document courtesy of the Bush Center. This facility marks time in history, promotes academic scholarship and lays the groundwork for economic growth, education reform, global health, human freedom, military service initiatives and women’s initiatives.

All photos by George W. Bush Presidential Center

Recently, I learned from having two (2) back-to-back meetings with the Federal Government and a well-known financial institution that they had difficulty accessing our idoincorporated.com website.  In fact, when they tried to look at our website, both of them received blocked messages stating “ACCESS DENIED” and “This website is categorized as: Education; Blogs/Personal Pages”, respectively.  According to AXIOMPORT resource, Scott Johnson, “Some warning messages contain more detailed explanations than the ones previously mentioned, such as “This website has been blocked by your system administrator/security filter” or “This site was categorized as social networking/entertainment/retail/etc.  If any additional message information is available, it might provide a specific reason for the blocked status.”  Needless to say, our government and financial institution contacts simply couldn’t retrieve the information that we were trying to communicate to and with them. 

Thanks to another valuable resource from AXIOMPORT – Cindy Lory, her research revealed that the issue is probably related to how the website is categorized by web-filter services.  We further learned that “many government agencies and large corporations block internet content for security, productivity, control and bandwidth considerations, and they may do so at their discretion.”  In fact, one of AXIOMPORT’s developers found this article that was very informative and pertinent to our government related incident.

For your immediate reference and review, here is an EXCERPT from the beginning of the article:

“Your Blog Is Not Seen by Over 2 Million Federal Workers!”

Filed Under: Miscellaneous Blog Tips This guest post is by Rick of morebettersmarts.com.

“Filtering software may be blocking your blog from being accessed on government computers.

When I first put my blog online, I discovered that my friends on the local military base were prevented from viewing it by the government’s filtering service, Blue Coat.

As none of my posts contained any questionable content, I was interested to find out why my blog was blocked. More importantly, as there are literally millions of federal workers worldwide, I wanted to ensure blog was seen by this audience.

While this information pertains specifically to the Blue Coat filtering service, it no doubt applies to other filtering agencies. Blue Coat just seems to be one of the more popular services used by the Department of Defense (DoD) and other government agencies.

Also note the information provided isn’t a way to circumvent the filtering service. The method used is perfectly legal, and I worked through Blue Coat to get it resolved.

The problem:  When my friends on the military base attempted to access my blog, a very official-looking page popped up with the heading, “ACCESS DENIED.” Further down the page explained that my site was blocked as its “Webfilter Category” was classified as “Blogs/Personal Pages.”

Cindy further advised us that although there are multiple filtering services available, according to the article, Blue Coat is one that has been used by various government agencies.  With regard to our blocked Government related communication efforts, we are probably going to petition to change the categorization of the site with Blue Coat using this link .

It is no secret that one of the most essential traits of successful people is the ability to communicate.   Thankfully, I had a very successful person, and communicator, in my life from the very beginning.  My mother is an excellent communicator and enjoyed a successful career as a teacher and school administrator.  She took pride in her ability to work with teachers, colleagues, students, and parents.  I think she attributes her ability to effectively communicate as a large factor to her successful career as an educator.

Naturally, as a teacher, my mom taught me many different lessons growing up.  One lesson, in particular, that has remained with me through the years, is a phrase that I came to loathe as a teenager (and heard daily).  “Jake, it’s not what you say.  It is how you say it…” Apparently, as I look back, she had a problem with my tone.  At the time I didn’t understand… Now, I do– the tone of my message is just as important, sometimes more important, than the actual message itself.

What is your tone when you communicate?  Is it always serious, limited to just the facts, and sometimes bordering on being curt?  Or are you often jovial and joke so often that it can, at times, be difficult to differentiate between jokes or important pieces of information?

Whenever communicating, it is important to think about what we are saying, but just as important to pay attention to what is being heard.  If we don’t take time to consider tone, it is completely possible that our intended audience will not receive the message.  After all, “Sometimes it is not what you say.  It is how you say it.”

“The single biggest problem with communication is the illusion that it has taken place.” ― George Bernard Shaw

What perfect timing for Part II of my blog for Technology and Engaged Learning, I attended a KI sponsored event yesterday about Planning and Designing Learning Environments for the Future.

How do most people learn: by actively engaging in the material rather than sitting in a classroom and writing down the words said by the professor, recent studies have shown as high as 90% retention with this style of learning.

At North Carolina State they did a study and the primary goal of the Student-Centered Active Learning Environment for Undergraduate Programs (SCALE-UP) Project was to establish a highly collaborative, hands-on, computer-rich, interactive learning environment for large-enrollment courses.

Another name for this type of environment is adaptive Pedagogy, or a flipped classroom, professors assign pre-class homework consisting of brief, recorded lectures and presentations, digital readings with collaborative annotation capabilities, and discussion board participation. This frees up classroom time to promote active learning through collaborative, project-based learning using simple display and sharing tools.

“The flipped classroom has become increasingly popular because there are so many new technologies that make out-of-classroom content creation a little bit easier, and there are drop-dead-simple technologies that keep the flow of idea generation and exchange moving inside the classroom to support active learning,” indicated a student from Indiana University, my daughter Emily.

While technology facilitates flipped instruction, it takes both planning and experimentation to perfect the model. Here are a few tips from classroom flippers of their best practices:

1. The technology needs to support really easy creation of the material, and allow for easy access by the students;
2. Lecture capture technologies support things like searching within slides, bookmarking, annotations, and collaboration within the platform, so I think that’s a really good baseline technology to support a lot of the pedagogy.
3. Never take power to mobile tables- Avoid it
4. In order to be more responsive to students’ specific needs, use clickers. They monitor students’ understanding of course material via the web.
5. Use of large discussion boards placed strategically within the room
6. The increase of square footage per student from 15 to 17 sq. ft. up to 20 to 27sq. ft. per student.  Using 84” round table with 9 students per table broken up into group of three.  Make sure to use the appropriate seating.

The flipped model requires students to be active agents of their own learning, rather than rely on the expertise of their professor.  What is the point of college, is to learn how to teach yourself–that’s what the rest of your life is going to require, you have to know how to find your own resources, and then put them to work as best as you can!

In a flipped classroom, a professor is able to teach both content and process, A professor at the University of Minnesota says,” We have to teach the ability to adapt and evolve along with the problems.”

The students get excited about the environment because they feel comfortable in asking questions of their peers, getting to know the other students in their group and using the tools from the real world to learn and collaborate.

Check out this website to learn what other campuses are doing around the country and how NC State started the revolution of the Flipped Classroom:  http://scaleup.ncsu.edu/

Asset Network for Education Worldwide, Inc. or ANEW, is a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization that provides other companies alternative ways to give their surplus furniture and equipment to other organizations in order to avoid landfills.

Essentially, ANEW has creating sustainable practices by extending the lifecycle of surplus items through reuse, resale and repurposing. They will coordinate the removal of all items, in any condition, from the building interior, conduct community outreach to charities and other organizations, and report the results and metrics of every project.

ANEW provides a service that gives the donor companies economic, tax and reporting results.

ANEW  takes action :

• To track to surplus removed and report the results
•  By issuing  a tax receipt for those items successfully matched to another organization
•  By issuing a Certificate  of Social Sustainability showing waste diverted metrics and service to community
• By submitting USGBC LEED documentation towards certification
• By providing press releases to support social media and educational documentary films or videos.

ANEW has developed sponsor partnerships with InstallNET, Knoll, Kimball  Office, Teknion, AIS, Humanscale, HBC, National Office Furniture, OM Workspace,  and others.

You can visit www.anewfound.org or info@anewfound.org  to see how you can become a contributing sponsor, donor or  to become a recipient of this socially sustainable service

To celebrate Earth Day this year, I thought I’d share some fun events and ideas to get you going green!

Join the fun at the free, outdoor Earth Day Indiana Festival, Saturday, April 27 in White River State Park. Kid-friendly and free bike parking!

There are a number of ways you can help support Keep Indianapolis Beautiful during the month of April. They are dedicated to preserving nature and revitalizing our neighborhoods throughout the year.

Eat like a vegetarian! This doesn’t mean to you have to give up meat altogether, rather try incorporating more vegetarian meals in your diet. Here’s a look at how much natural resources are needed for just one hamburger.

Clean out your clutter by bringing old electronics to the Power Recycling Weekend at the Indianapolis Zoo, April 27-28 -9am-3pm.

Want to make an impact on a broader scale? Check out the current Earth Day campaigns and make a pledge today.

Get ready to……

Throw open the windows,

Show a little skin,

Jump from a dock,

Crank up the music,

Line up for ice Cream,

Race a thundercloud,

Fall asleep in the grass,

And perhaps laugh with a co-worker, fellow researcher or classmate.

Spring will soon be transitioning us into summer.  May you……Thrown open the windows and think about the design architect’s intent for the placement of that window.  Show a little skin and jump from the dock in that cute bathing suit designed to be both comfortable and to stay on!  Crank up the music using “It runs from the sun“. A cool solar charger that sticks to the glass of a window sporting a full-size USB port and a mini-USB port.  Great for connecting portable devices in need of a clean energy battery boost.  Line up for ice cream and wait for the pleasure of tasting what is clearly designed to be the most ultimate sweet and cool pleasure the summer has to offer.  Race a thundercloud on that new carbon bicycle and then fall asleep in the grass designed by Mother Nature herself or perhaps that thoughtful landscape architect or civic planner who invisioned an urban landscape where grass is plentiful.  And that laugh with your co-coworker, fellow researcher or classmate?  Perhaps that was made possible by an interior designer who strategically planned the flow of the space to bring people together and designed an atmosphere to facilitate a sense of joy and laughter!

The Grandfather of great design, Dieter Rams, defined great design by saying, ‘It does not make a product more innovative, powerful or valuable than it really is. It does not attempt to manipulate the consumer with promises that cannot be kept.’ He also said, ‘Good design is making something intelligible and memorable. Great design is making something memorable and meaningful.’

Here comes the sun and summer.  May yours be a bright and full of the intangible qualities of GREAT DESIGN!

Maybe you didn’t even realize it has been closed during its renovation/restoration.  Maybe you didn’t even realize the Rijksmuseum is one of the premier museum collections in the world.  Or, maybe you did.

The Pierre Cuypers designed building, built from 1876 to 1885, has been undergoing renovation and restoration for longer than it originally took to build.  The museum has been undergoing renovation and restoration since 2003 and re-opened last week.

Only about 400 of the one-million piece permanent collection have been on exhibit during the renovation in the Philips Wing of the museum.

Now let’s just say you don’t have plans anytime soon to be in or around Amsterdam.  Visiting the Rijksmuseum is out of the question, right?

Wrong!

Here’s the great news.  In preparation of its reopening the Rijksmuseum has launched Rijks Studio.  Rijks Studio has 125,000 of the Rijksmuseum’s works available online.  The museum is allowing the public to download famous and not-so-famous works of art to manipulate, study, share…whatever to their heart’s desire.  Oh, did I mention they were allowing this copyright-free?

What?

That’s right.  The museum’s directors believe the Rijksmuseum is a museum for, and of, everyone. Taco Dibbits, director of collections said, “The collection inspires, we want to unleash the artist in everyone.”

So while you’re saving up for your trip to see the Rijksmuseum and its works in person, get creative.  Bags, iPhone covers, wall-coverings, umbrellas, and blog entry photos are just some ideas, Rijks Studio has some other ideas here.  Go have some fun.  What will you create?

Oh, and if you want to see some of the before and after pics of the restoration and renovation, check them out at the architects’, Cruz y Ortiz, website.